The Golfer’s Perfect Spouse

I got really lucky in the spouse department. Rebecca and I have been together 22 years. And although I tease her that they’ve been the best 6 years of my life, all 22 have been wonderful.

Rebecca’s not athletic – au contraire. Her favorite statement, which she says proudly, is “I don’t do anything with balls involved.” In fact, she’s so non-athletic she’s like Einstein’s “antimatter”. Antimatter isn’t the lack of matter, and it’s not a vacuum, it’s ANTI-matter. Rebecca isn’t just not an athlete, she’s the ANTI-athlete. Stand too close to her and you won’t be able to putt.

So what makes Rebecca the golfer’s perfect spouse? Simply put, she considers my passion for golf to be a good thing. I’ve heard other golfer’s spouses say “you’re addicted to golf” or “you’re obsessed with golf”. Ouch. One is addicted to drugs, one is obsessed with a foot fetish. With golf, “love” and “passion” are the correct words and Rebecca gets it.

Now I’m not saying I can’t be a jerk when it comes to golf. When we had been dating for about 5 months and both knew it was getting serious, we starting discussing next steps. While neither one of us can remember the entire conversation, we both remember that I said (yes, I really said this) “Well, let’s get through a golf season first.”

I know, I know, I’m a dork! But in my defense, I had just dated someone who, after only 3 dates, called to ask me to take a vacation day to go to the beach with her. I told her that I liked to save my vacation days for golf. She was shocked: “You’d rather golf than go to the beach with me?” I was still fumbling for a response when I heard the click.

But with Rebecca, I don’t have to temper my love for golf, in fact, I can even joke about it. When we were discussing moving to Pennsylvania for her career (making me “have to” retire), I said to her as dead-panned as I could, “Well, here’s how I see the situation: one of us has to work, one of us has to golf…. let’s go with our strengths.”

And if that’s not chutzpah enough, last week we were stuck in a huge traffic jam on our way to the airport. Really frustrated, Rebecca said, “If we were super-rich, we could just take a helicopter to the airport.” I quickly responded, “Hey, I shot an 81 this morning, I’m doing my part”.

I guess she’s not only the greatest “golfer’s spouse” she’s the greatest “dork’s spouse”, too.

Great story. However I am addicted to golf. I do love golf as you know but when you would rather play golf in the rain, hail, etc than really do any thing else, it does go beyond love. And oh by the way walking the golf s
Course twice a day for 4 days to score for some pro that you might never have heard of before you got the pairings sheet goes well beyond “love”
Now you do know I love Rebecca, but I also love my Andy who is also obsessed (addicted to) with golf. We do love each other though! Love you too.
Hope the back is better soon!